Status Update: A Park And Pigeons now runs on Android

Andy Craft

November 4, 2017

Hello again, 4000 Pounds website. You might think I forgot that you were here waiting for me, but I didn’t. I was just busy with Real Life. But I realized that I needed to return to you with the latest development from this week. Get ready for an UPDATE.

The last time I posted (if you can remember that far back), I had just finished getting the game running on my iPhone. Since then, I’ve made some various improvements, but the biggest news is that the game runs on Android now! My brother loaned me his old Samsung Galaxy S5, and it’s quite smooth:

See? Smooth.

So where is the project now? The game runs on the two most popular OS’s for mobile devices, so it should be for sale soon, right? Right?

Well, sorta. I’ve still got a lot of work to do. Okay, maybe not a lot, but it’s all important. I want to make sure the game is solid when I release it. So here’s what I have left on my list, broken out into some basic categories:

Programming

Backgrounds – I want to have more decorative backgrounds, and a larger variety than just one background. Some of this will be procedurally generated – nothing too complex, I promise to keep it simple.

Menus – They are kind of a mess right now with the move to mobile. So first I’m going to get them working right, then I’ll add some screens for settings, high scores, or whatever else there is.

HUD – I’m pretty happy with the HUD as it is, but since moving to mobile, there are a few changes I could make. For one, the screen is kind of small, so I’d like to make the fonts just a tad bigger to start.

New Features – There are a few new features I have in mind for the game, so I’d like to get those added as well. I won’t get into all of them here (I’d like some to be a surprise for players), but they shouldn’t be too much work to get integrated. I’m also thinking of revising (or even throwing away) the bonus challenge stuff, as it just still feels kind of clunky. We’ll see.

Defect Resolution – I’ve been keeping a list of bugs, so I’ll be working on cleaning those up.

Assets

Pigeons – I need to draw lots of pigeons. So many pigeons.

Food – I also need to draw more food. More seeds (for more variety). Street foods for bonuses.

Dog – I’m mostly happy with the dog, but I’d like to make a few modifications.

Background art – In addition to implementing some background generation, I’ll need to actually make the assets for it.

Animations – I need to do some fine-tuning for animations.

HUD/Menu/Logo/etc. – I need to work on a lot of the screen graphics, the things you don’t generally see in-game.

Font (?) – I might try to make a new font, or even a secondary one.

Sound/Music – I’m not sure if I’ll put any music in the game. I definitely need to do some work on the sound though. More/better sound effects. And I need them to sync with the action a little better (I seem to notice a small gap between a pigeon flying/dashing and the actual sound).

Marketing

Website – I really need to do some work on this website. I need to add a landing page for the game, and even set up the games page. In fact, I really just need to redesign the whole site so that it looks… well, you know. Good.

Press Kit – I don’t know how much press attention my game will get, but it’d be better to have a press kit than not.

Trailer – I’ll need to make a decent trailer for the game. Short and to the point.

Distribution

iOS port – Sure, the game runs on iOS now. But as I make changes, I’ll need to make sure it keeps playing on iOS.

Android port – Same as with iOS, let’s keep it running on Android.

App Stores – I need to figure out what steps I actually need to take to get the game into the app stores.

So this is pretty much the list – I know parts of it are vague, but they’re a little more detailed in my notes, so no worries there. I know what I’m doing. Sorta. The point is that as I get an idea how long these things will take me, I’m going to start looking for a release date. As soon as I have it, I will let you know.